


Dance With Me

by rumbellesecrets



Series: A Tale of True Love [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Rumbelle Secret Santa 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9233996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumbellesecrets/pseuds/rumbellesecrets
Summary: Rumplestiltskin and Belle visit a different world.(set pre-curse)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glindathegood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glindathegood/gifts).



> Prompt: Rumbelle and Broadway musicals
> 
> Follows [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9175741) \- where their story deviates from canon.
> 
> And [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9224186) \- where Rumplestiltskin sees the need to take Belle on a trip.

Rumplestiltskin laughed as Belle danced her way back to him, twirling one last time on her high heels and stretching her arms out to hold his hands. He obeyed the wordless cue, tugging her closer and leaning down to kiss her forehead in welcome. “Had fun, love?”

Belle grinned, nodding with enthusiasm. “Did you see? I didn’t trip even once this time!”

“I saw,” he assured her, tapping her cheek playfully.

“It was such a relief to get through the whole song without grabbing onto the woman next to me!”

He pretended bafflement. “There were other women?”

Belle laughed, but her rising blush said that she was charmed. “You’re so silly, Rumple.” She took advantage of her improved height and kissed the tip of his nose. “I love you so much,” she whispered with feeling.

For a moment, Rumplestiltskin was in danger of joining the fools who broke into song at any sign that their sweethearts returned their feelings. He swallowed, using his own magic as a shield against the influence in the very air of this world. “I love you too, dear,” he told her, having learned that hearing the words was as important to her as being allowed to say them was to him.

Belle’s smile widened, and her hand squeezed his. “So where are we going next?”

They didn’t have a set schedule, but after the first three weeks they had fallen into a bit of a routine. The morning was to enjoy in their hotel suite - and hadn’t it been fun, to explain to Belle the differences between the opulent business with its army of maids and bellboys, and the vastly more humble inns with which she was passingly familiar?

Their growing collection of books was their favorite companion during those early hours, with him perusing anything that pertained to magic while Belle devoured novel after novel. Her delight when she had realized that now she had a whole world’s literature to explore had been worth the assault her happy squeals had pounded on his ears.

Sometimes she would pause and lower her book, turning to him to ask for clarification of an unfamiliar term. They had learned in the first days that consulting a dictionary often confused Belle with even stranger concepts, and though Rumplestiltskin privately believed that by now she had a solid foundation on the inventions of this world, it was nice to spend a half-hour discussing whatever artifact had caught her curiosity.

He also liked that their conversation often became an exchange on how to introduce the more useful advancements of this world into theirs - or at least, Belle said, into the Dark Castle.

“You might click your fingers and light up the fireplace and all the candles in a room, Rumple,” she had told him, the fact that she was settled on his lap erasing any annoyance in her tone, “but these light bulbs would help me bundles when you’re away.”

Yes, their mornings were busy even if they stayed within four walls.

For lunch they often had the staff bring them something light, and then they would set out to wander about town together. This world was so different from the Enchanted Forest that it seemed impossible that the two were joined by a twirl of Jefferson’s hat.

“Who rules here?” had been one of Belle’s first questions,

Rumplestiltskin had shrugged. “I’ve visited several times, and still have no idea.”

“But… isn’t there a king?”

“Oh, several!”

Belle had frowned in confusion.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. There will be a royal ball somewhere in the city every week, but the people who attend don’t seem to have more power than the ones who stay at home. Lots of wedding receptions too, but marrying between classes instead of forming alliances seems the norm.” He crinkled his nose. Power should be visible, easy to manipulate or defend against. It annoyed him to think that, just as the Dark One stayed among the other hundreds of visitors, other powers must also lie low. “I told you it was a strange place.”

Belle bit her lip. “That it is,” she said, but her voice had grown vague, as if lost in thought.

When Rumplestiltskin had looked up, their eyes had met and he’d smiled as he guessed where her mind had gone. “If you want to go to one of those balls, you only need to say the word, my dear.”

Belle had beamed at him, throwing her arms around his neck to pull him into a long kiss.

That had been a day where they stayed in their hotel suite all day.

However, most afternoons were spent outside, where no one stroll was like another. Even if some faces had started to look familiar after the last weeks, there would still be different songs being belted out in public, and different dance styles were performed. In the beginning they had watched with bemusement as random passers-by snapped to attention on the sidewalk and gleefully interrupted their errands to join in the dance, but it hadn’t taken long for Belle to adopt the local custom.

“It’s fun!” she had explained when Rumplestiltskin had wondered why she’d do it. “Well… when someone is happy, it is.”

Belle had a point. The mood on the streets would change from one song to the next. One moment it could be a couple declaring their love for the first time, the next family members reuniting and forgiving each other; but there were also the grieving girlfriends mourning their lost loves, young people despairing about crushed hopes, and the older ones expounding on their regrets.

Every day was a symphony.

The people in this world could not stop themselves from turning their lives into a public show anymore than people in the Enchanted Forest could help meeting a magical creature at some point in their lives.

“But why?” Belle had asked, the first time she had seen a couple twirl in quick gyrations across the street as the carriages on both lanes pulled up patiently to let them pass. “How can that be normal?”

Rumplestiltskin smirked. “Magic, of course.”

“They’re under a curse?” she’d gasped, looking aghast at the thought of this many people controlled by an outside force.

Rumplestiltskin’s amusement had faded, reminded that this horror would be what he’d face the day she found out about his plans for the Enchanted Forest. “No,” he’d reassured her, happy to offer her a soothing truth this time. “Of course not, sweetheart.”

Patiently, he had explained how the magic of this world was not channeled into spells and potions. Even the magical objects Rumplestiltskin had encountered in his reading were more a matter of curiosity for some of the learned doctors than an object of struggle between opposite parties.

“It’s in the air,” he’d told her. “Literally.”

Blue eyes had widened. “What about us?”

Rumplestiltskin took her hand, guiding it to hover over his own. With effort, he’d called up a bit of the power around them, molding it into a soft glow he tried to push from his palm to hers. “Feel that?”

Her forehead scrunched. “A resistance….”

“We are from another world, dearie. It would take a lifetime for it to compel us to join the revelers.”

“But it won’t stop us?”

Rumplestiltskin had chuckled. “No, Belle. I brought you here so you’d have fun. Dance if you want.”

“And you’ll dance with me?”

He had shaken his head, but Belle had grasped his wrist and led it to her waist. “We’ve danced together before,” she’d reminded him, her soft smile the same she had worn on the evenings he had allowed music into the great hall and bowed before her, playing the courting game just to hear her laugh.

“And we will again,” Rumplestiltskin had promised, and then added, “when we return home.”

Belle had taken his other hand, laced their fingers together and raised it until they were positioned to start a waltz. But she hadn’t moved further, and after a few breaths, she’d loosened her grasp and threaded her arms around his neck instead. “We can clear some space in the receiving room later, can’t we?”

“That can be arranged,” he’d said, happy with her proposal.

Music had never been an important part of his life. But then Belle had come with the snatches of folk songs hummed under her breath as she worked, and later with new bits of poetry she had memorized, given a tune of her invention.

The girl liked music, and so he loved to indulge her.

He would have taken her to every dance in the Enchanted Forest until the soles of her slippers disappeared, but to bring the Dark One’s lover into a social setting would be a disaster. Gossip would arise immediately around Belle, and Rumplestiltskin burned with anger at the mere thought of mean-spirited words reaching her ears. Oh, he knew she would bear any insult with dignity, but to do the same was asking too much of him.

Eventually someone would cross a line, and Rumplestiltskin would be forced to either punish the fool or retreat. He knew himself too well to hope he could do the latter, and he knew Belle enough to understand she wouldn’t forgive the former.

So he’d made different plans.

If their world couldn’t acknowledge what a treasure Belle was, then they had to visit a different one.

Jefferson had refused at first, insisting that he wouldn’t touch the hat again. Rumplestiltskin had only smirked, aware that Jefferson would at least use it once more, but under Regina’s orders, and even though he hadn’t cared to learn the details he also knew that Jefferson wouldn’t be well pleased with the results.

If Regina would be able to convince him, with her barely veiled threats and her reputation for carrying them out, then there was no chance he’d deny Belle’s sweet requests. Particularly when she had promised to cover the expenses of father and daughter for as long as the four of them stayed in the other world.

“Ah hah!” Jefferson had laughed, turning to Rumplestiltskin. “She speaks in your name now, Rumple? Or is it just your gold she is free to spend?”

The mild tease had not amused Rumplestiltskin. A dry look had withered the younger man’s laughter. “Both,” Rumplestiltskin had said earnestly.

Jefferson’s face had paled. “I see,” he’d murmured, obviously trying to fit his worldview around a woman empowered by the Dark One himself. “And all you want is… a bit of an excursion. No danger, no risk?” He eyed Rumplestiltskin. “No Dark One business?”

Rumplestiltskin had shaken his head. “Not this time.”

“In that case,” Jefferson had said, folding into a gracious bow over Belle’s hand. “Grace and I will be happy to escort you.”

Including the child had not been in his original plan, but after considering the matter, Rumplestiltskin had decided that he should be happy to fund a trip for four. He hadn’t even protested when Belle decided the realm-crosser should be lodged in a suite equal to theirs.

Luxury could be a poisoned gift when it had a deadline, and the poverty awaiting him was a heavy burden for a father.

That Jefferson didn’t even have a trade to fall back on didn’t escape him. Even Rumplestiltskin had been able to put enough food on the table to fill a growing boy’s stomach.

Jefferson only had his hat.

When their visit in this world was over, the return to the little shack in the forest would be all the more jarring. Which meant that the day Regina knocked on his door, he would be easy pickings.

But Jefferson’s meeting with the Queen was still months ahead.

For now Rumplestiltskin didn’t need to worry about Regina and the trail of suffering she left in her wake. There was no need to think of the future, as it would be waiting the moment they crossed back to their world, and so Rumplestiltskin was free to focus on this delightful bubble of time at Belle’s side.

In this different world, he could be a different man.

Arm in arm with Belle as they navigated the busy streets, Rumplestiltskin let himself forget for a few hours the chessboard he had rigged in the Enchanted Forest. Instead of keeping an eye on Regina and her stepdaughter, as well as on the other pieces that would soon need to be played, Rumplestiltskin indulged himself in watching Belle interact with the world at large.

He should have known that his plans to show her around within a couple days would stretch into weeks. Belle had loved this world at first sight, with its strange tall buildings and so many different modes of transportation coursing through miles and miles of civilization.

Any woman raised within a castle, with only a nearby town to visit, and then taken to an even more solitary post without even servants to accompany her would have been overwhelmed by the hundreds of people milling around everywhere they looked.

But after the first day, Belle had taken the seas of people in stride, often taking advantage of their anonymity to engage complete strangers.

Rumplestiltskin didn’t mind.

On the contrary, he was quietly smug to see his beloved shine brighter than any queen or goddess of their home realm. People were helpless against her smiles, her curious questions, and her congenial smiles even as she drew every bit of knowledge about this world from its inhabitants.

In a rare reversal from their roles in the Enchanted Forest, it was Belle who drew the attention of the people around them while Rumplestiltskin stayed in the background.

His features were unremarkable, the inhuman skin and grotesque teeth shed away once he stepped into this world. He dressed in sober outfits, sometimes of a similar cut to those he wore at home, and other times looser pants of carefully pressed fabric coupled with matching jackets.

He blended in.

It was one of the reasons he liked this world so much. No one came to him begging for help, or threatening to slay him, or proposing a deal. He was one more business man arrived to the capital, and no one expected him to boast of more power than what his unending supply of gold afforded him. No one approached him except for mundane reasons, and Rumplestiltskin was happy to concentrate his attention on Belle alone.

Matters in the Enchanted Forest took him away from her too often, so this was a welcome change.

It was Belle who basked in the presence of the friendly crowds around them. She would draw strangers into conversation, all sunny smiles and honest concern over their troubles. Eventually those people had introduced her to more friends, which had meant a flood of invitations and the opportunity for Rumplestiltskin to watch as Belle stole the limelight at dinner parties and picnics while he went unnoticed.

Rumplestiltskin had discovered to his own amusement that he truly didn’t mind being ignored.

It gave him more time to admire Belle.

Belle’s voice. Belle’s laughter. Belle’s animation as she told a story, and her attentive expression when she was being told one. Belle’s fashion sense, with its dizzying disregard for the limitations a lifetime in their world should have imposed on her.

Not even Rumplestiltskin had found it so easy to embrace the different fashions, but Belle had adapted with open-minded joy.

Oh, some of her new dresses were similar to those a lady would wear in the Enchanted Forest, silks and ribbons, lace and gold buttons, the skirts wide and falling down to cover her legs, often hiding her ankles and sometimes even fanning behind her to sweep against the floor.

“I think I like you in these the best,” he’d told her once, when she’d dressed in a gown similar to the one he’d first seen her in. Blue might be her favorite color, to be worn in the comfort of home, but she knew she looked splendid in shades of gold.

She had looked at their reflection in the full-body mirror, catching his gaze even as he leaned to kiss her bared shoulder. “Do you? I thought you didn’t care what I wore, Rumple.”

He nipped her skin, a light reproach for throwing his words back at him. “I meant you could choose what you wanted, dear. You know that.”

Belle had laughed. She’d known indeed.

“Maybe it’s just habit,” he’d mused. “Three hundred years make a man set in his ways.”

Her hand had moved to play with his hair, and she grinned at him knowingly. “So it has nothing to do with the necklines?” The way his eyes had snapped to her bosom had been as loud as an admission. Belle had laughed again, bringing her fingers to stroke the low edge where fabric met rosy skin. “No, of course not.”

They hadn’t made that dinner appointment at all.

Rumplestiltskin didn’t regret a single moment spent in spoiling Belle. Taking her to the local shops had been an adventure in itself.

Rumplestiltskin could think of few moments he had enjoyed as much as watching Belle parade dozens of outfits before him, sometimes changing into them so as to have a better idea of their final effect, and sometimes just examining them in their hangers, trading impressions until Belle made her choice.

Her hug when he’d reassured her that she didn’t need to leave behind any article she’d liked had been worth the pile of gold coins he’d paid.

That day had sealed their intent for a longer stay.

To take Belle home after she had a new closet to try would have been silly. Most of the outfits would only have garnered more whispers behind her back, and where would she have worn them?

Rumplestiltskin didn’t mind the longer stay. Time in this realm ran significantly more slowly than in the Enchanted Forest. They could spend a whole season here, and it would only make a difference of three or four days away from their home realm.

He felt confident that his plans were safe for that long.

Regina was currently distracted with the ruining of the life of Snow White’s new mermaid friend, and would be satisfied to retreat to her palace and keep plotting after she had succeeded. The girl was predictable in her triumphs… which was why she would ultimately lose.

But by then, Rumplestiltskin wouldn’t have to care about Regina’s fate. She would have already taken him to the world without magic, and his journey would be at its end.

For her sake, he hoped she had made some allies by then.

He would be too busy building a new life with Baelfire, Belle at his side, to care how the enemies of the Evil Queen rallied against her. Maybe he and Bele would bring Bae here? He smiled at the thought of his boy joining some impromptu choreography in the street.

Baelfire would love that, he thought.

With this thought in mind, it was inevitable that he changed his and Belle’s course to follow the sound of the voices of a group of boys in the nearby park. Four of them in total, ranging in ages from a five- or six-year-old to the oldest who must be entering his teens very soon. All from the same brood, from what he could see of their features.

As Rumplestiltskin walked closer, he saw that the boys sat on the grass surrounding a man, turning their rapt attention to him.

Curious, he directed Belle to step closer until he could listen in.

“…then he took out his sword, and jabbed a filthy pirate between his ribs. ‘Don’t make a noise,’ he hissed, 'or I’ll run you through from side to side.’”

“Did he do it?” the oldest boy yelled.

Bloodthirsty youngsters were the norm across all the realms, Rumplestiltskin had discovered over time. All it took was to raise them somewhere without a war at their doorstep and a death sentence hanging over their young heads.

The man laughed, shaking his head. “This was a pirate smart enough to know that Peter Pan didn’t bluff—”

Rumplestiltskin instinctively flinched at that name.

A part of him kept listening to the adventures of a boy who never grew up. A boy with some magic of his own, enough to fly and travel across worlds. A boy who invited other boys to join him, and then took them to an island where time didn’t matter.

“…and, once the mermaids were saved and the treasure was found, Peter Pan returned to his favorite tree, content to have peace in Neverland again.”

_Neverland._

That couldn’t be coincidence.

“That’s not what happened,” he snapped.

Only then did he notice that Belle had been tugging at his arm, trying to get a reaction from him for a while already. He placed his hand over her, looking to reassure her but mostly trying to reassure himself.

This wasn’t a nightmare.

This was really a man from another world using bits and pieces of Rumplestiltskin’s true story to amuse a group of children he had never seen before.

“That’s not what happened at all!” he repeated, hearing his voice take more strength on this second attempt.

The man looked up, frowning in confusion. Looked around as if to make sure it was he who was being addressed, he then made a small bow in Rumplestiltskin’s direction. “Excuse me?”

“That’s not—”

“I heard you.” The man glanced at Belle, but Belle was looking worriedly at Rumplestiltskin. Then he shrugged. “It’s just a story I made up,” he explained. “There’s no wrong way to tell it.”

Rumplestiltskin shook his head. “You must have heard that name before,” he insisted. “How do you know how to reach Neverland at all?”

The man took a step back now. “It’s just imagination, sir.” He waved at the eldest boy, who took his cue and gathered his siblings behind him. “If the story upset you in any way…”

Rumplestiltskin digested that.

“Rumple?” Belle whispered, tugging on his arm.

Only then he realized that he had moved to approach the man.

With effort, he stopped himself. There had to be a reasonable explanation. “This is important,” he managed through gritted teeth, holding onto his patience by sheer force of will. If his father had any influence in this world, he needed to get Belle out of here posthaste. “Maybe you heard someone else tell a different version of…. the tale?”

The stranger shook his head. “I wrote it myself,” he said. “Sir James Barrie, at your service.”

“Rumple… von Stiltskin,” he returned the courtesy, using the name that suited this world’s standards.

He heard Barrie greet Belle, and her soft giggle of amusement at being addressed as Mrs. von Stiltskin. Usually he would have met her eye, and they would share the private joke, but this time Rumplestiltskin felt his mind race through possibilities.

Attuned to his mood, though unaware of the cause, Belle made easy chit-chat with Barrie and then introduced herself to the children. Undoubtedly she would have the information he needed within minutes.

Barrie’s story didn’t change, and soon he had the boys adding to his claim of creative ownership.

Rumplestiltskin searched three hundred years of knowledge for an explanation. Finally he found it in a myth older than even the Dark One. “You’re an Author!”

Barrie didn’t seem to understand the true meaning of the word. He only nodded in relief. “Exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

He knew liars. Barrie wasn’t one.

He wasn’t an Author either. But he had the potential. Perhaps in his sleep he muddled through the brightest flashes and the main turns of a story happening across space and time, and mixed them with his own imagination.

It made him uncomfortable to wonder whether every work of fiction in his and Belle’s collection here - and perhaps even those in the library at the Dark Castle? - were bastardized versions of lives in other worlds.

It still shook him, to have heard even this echo about his father’s actions.

“He’s the  _best_ ,” one of the boys piped up, pride making him bold. “He will be publishing another play very soon! And this one will do even better than the first.”

“Well, yes. Probably.” Barrie laughed nervously. “Don’t forget, George. I must finish it first!”

The four boys groaned in unison.

The youngest pulled on Barrie’s sleeve, a childish pout on his lips. “But you  _must_  finish it. I want to know whether Baelfire ever returns home!”

Rumplestiltskin felt his world tilt.

“Baelfire?”

But it wasn’t his voice, asking this important question. It was Belle, and now he realized that what was tethering him to reality was her painfully tight grasp on his arm. Just like she seemed to hold onto a polite tone by sinking her nails so hard that he felt their bite through his coat and shirt.

Barrie nodded. “Yes, ma'am. Came to me just a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it was a grand idea. I mean, my first play was about the kids who wanted to escape from home and have adventures… but what if there’s this one who can’t go home at all?” His enthusiasm blinded him to Rumplestiltskin and Belle’s reactions. It was probably for the better. How to explain otherwise? What were the chances Baelfire’s name had slipped into the consciousness of someone in this world right when they had come to visit? “Strange name for a character, I know. But what can one do? Sometimes they do that!”

Belle brushed aside the artistic musings. “And this Baelfire… he really is in— in— What did you call this place?”

Man and boys answered in an unplanned chorus, then laughed at themselves.

“Neverland,” Rumplestiltskin echoed in a whisper, walking away in a daze.

He dimly heard Belle make hasty goodbyes, and before soon, she was tugging on his arm again.

“Rumple…”

Their eyes met. Confusion. Joy. Hesitation.  _Hope_. All of that he saw in Belle’s eyes, and he knew they were her own feelings, not just a reflection of his reaction.

Without knowing him outside the stories Rumplestiltskin had been able to share, Belle wanted Baelfire back as well.

“Yes,” he said, answering what she hadn’t needed to ask out loud. “Let’s go home. We will find a way to Neverland from there.”

He would ask Jefferson. He would shower the man in gold for the rest of his life; he would swear the Dark One’s protection.for him and his daughter.

Anything!

If Bae really was on that cursed island…

Rumplestiltskin straightened his shoulders, ready for battle.

He had planned the impossible, to find his child. He had almost torn apart reality, to reach the land without magic. But if Bae was in Neverland… Stepping foot in his father’s territory had its own set of risks, but he could face them as soon as he readied some defenses.

“Do you think—?” he asked, barely daring to hope.

Belle grasped his hand, smiled encouragingly, and said with the confidence Rumplestiltskin would have taken days to find: “Yes. Yes, Rumple. You are bringing your son home.”

**Author's Note:**

> A.N. The last set of characters belong to [Finding Neverland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Neverland_\(musical\)).


End file.
